--for instance, Yorkshire and Lancashire--would be a moft valuable improvement in the reprefentation. It would operate, however, not fo much in directly improving the Houfe of Commons, as in diffusing a more popular fpirit, by increafing the number of great popular elections, and in giving certain claffes of the people an intereft in the management of public affairs; which is highly beneficial to liberty. Thefe advantages we are very far from undervaluing, but they belong to a clafs quite different from that which we have ventured to point out as the firft and most important, namely, the direct limitation of minifterial influence in the Houfe of Commons. It appears to us, that this fhould be the first object of reform, as it is indifputably the first evil in the prefent fyftem; and that a wife and prudent ftatefman would stop at this point, and be fatisfied with having gone thus far, when he had brought forward the meafures above fuggefted with fuch a view. The change would be great and beneficial in itfelf, and it would pave the way for further (there can fcarcely be greater) improvements. But if we would fain hold fuch language to the well-meaning and zealous friends of parliamentary reform, we can in nowife fuffer the enemies of all conftitutional improvements to interfere with their veto, and profcribe whatever is propofed, merely becaufe it is a change. We object, as much as they can do, to all rash projects-all whole fale reforms-all theoretical fyftem-mongers, who will have every thing, or nothing, and care not how much they put in jeopardy, fo as they bring out fomething rounded and fi nithed off at the first heat. But then, we hold it to be equally unwife to reject every propofal of a moderate and temperate kind -introduced cautiously for the purpole of remedying a fingle acknowledged evil, fo unconnected with any other part of the fyt tem, that the experiment may fucceed, or may fail, without the fmallest danger to the interefts of the whole.

We afk, too, what is the confiftency of fuch fcruples? We might in moft cafes demand, where is their honesty? The very perfons who affect to be moft troubled by them, are making daily changes in every part of our fyftem; nay, without feeling it-probably without knowing it certainly without fo calling it-they have been reforming parliaments for the last twenty years, undisturbed by their own fcruples, and unpunished by any of the fearful confequences which they now affect to apprehend. If we should be told that it is dangerous to reform the Scotch county reprefentation, we demand, who it was that altered, over and over again, within a few years, the fyftem of county elections in Ireland? Who changed the right of voting from ten to twenty pounds, (except where the voter actually refided and cultivated?) Who introduced the registry yitem, and excluded tl.e votes of rent-chargers? All thefe changes

were greater and more violent than any that we now propose;they were more odious, too, in their nature; for they disfranchifed-they limited, instead of extending, as we would do, the right of voting --they were introduced, too, in the most troublefome times, into a country torn in pieces by faction, and even a prey to civil war-while we are only propofing an extenfion of the elective franchife in the moft peaceful times, and the moft quiet part of the empire. Yet all thofe comparatively violent changes thofe parliamentary reforms in Ireland paffed harmless over our heads, and left the country and its legiflature entire, until there came upon it that grand parliamentary revolution-the Irish Union the very pride of thofe who cant the moft intolerably upon the perils of the most limited reform. With fuch reafoners, it were vain, as well as ufelefs, to argue, The neceflities of their country will alone extort from them a portion of that indulgence for the found and temperate pians of others, which they have fo freely required for their own violent projects.

We have delivered ourfelves thortly upon this part of the fubject on the prefent occafion; becaufe we purpofe, in every fucceeding Number of this Journal, to refume it; and never, upon any account, to lofe fight of it, until our feeble efforts, in conjuntion with thofe of abler men, fhall have awakened the country and its government to a fenfe of its fituation, and a defire to attempt its improvement in good earneft.

We have, on the prefent occafion, done little more than trace the evil to its fource, and indicate the manner of applying the remedy, and the point to which the first attempts fhould be directed. This much may ferve as a fit introduction to the fubject. We are not without the vanity of believing, that our uncealing efforts helped on the abolition of the flave trade, and affifted in opening men's eyes to the ftupid bigotry which opprefles the Irish Catholics-topics which we ftarted in our very firit Number, (See No. I. Art. XXI.), and which, we believe, have been inculcated more or lefs in every fucceeding publication of this widely circulated Journal. May we now indulge a hope, that we are preparing the many thousands who read our pages, for a candid confi deration of the important topics to which this article is intended as an introduction, and that our labours here alfo may be attended with fome good fruits.

For the reft we have too long been calumniated, and too often received every fpecies of base adulation from our calumniators, to be in the finalleft degree anxious what reception the foregoing pages may meet with, either among the wretched minions of prefent power, or the equally contemptible tools of a tumultuous facgion. It is hard to fay, whether the arts of the one or the other

clas

clafs of impoftors are most despicable ;-for, as an utter difregard of truth and contempt of decency, characterize the feeble efforts of both claffes in nearly the fame degree, we cannot ftop to apportion the fhares of other qualities which may belong to each;and we recollect the labours of the one and the other with the fame impreffions.

ART. IX.

British Georgics. By James Grahame. pp. 340. 4to. Edinburgh, 1809.

WE E have no great predilection, we must say, for Didactic po etry of any sort, at least, where it corresponds with its title, and really aims at teaching; and though there are several pieces that have obtained much merited celebrity under that title, we suspect that it has been earned by the passages to which it was least applicable. Some have pleased by the liveliness and beauty of the descriptions which they contained; others by the exquisite polish and elegance of the composition; and the greater part, perhaps, by their episodes and digressions. Who reads the precepts of Hesiod, or the arguments of Lucretius?-or even the maxims about sowing and reaping in Virgil, or the theory of laughter and of general ideas in Akenside?

The poem before us, we fear, will not take away this reproach of the Didactic Muse; and may indeed be divided, more certainly and commodiously than most of its family, into the two great compartments of the legible and the illegible. The agricultural precepts, which are as dull and prosaic as any precepts we ever met with, fortunately are not very intimately mixed up with the descriptive and poetical passages; and those, which are often of great beauty and pathos, are generally so detached and complete in themselves, that they might have stood as well in any other work which treated of rural life and rural scenery; and may be perfectly relished and understood by those who are wicked enougin to skip over all the agricultural learning of the volume.

Though Georgics' may be, as Mr Grahame assures us, the proper appellation for all treatises of husbandry in verse, the 'Scotish Farmer's Kalendar' would have been a title more descriptive of the plan and substance of the work before us. Not only is the whole scenery borrowed from this end of the island, but the poem is divided into twelve parts or sections, arranged in the order, and under the names of the twelve months of the year, and containing full directions for all farm-work proper to each month respectively, as well as some fine descriptions of the successive ap

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pearances of the country, and the condition of its inhabitants; together with many little episodes and reflections arising out of these considerations.

In thus putting the whole year into blank verse, it was evidently next to impossible to avoid clashing with the author of the Seasons; and those, accordingly, who are jealous of Thomson's original invention, will find frequent occasion to complain of the author before us. At the same time, there are many points in which we think his merits must be admitted by all lovers of poetry, and his originality confessed by the warmest admirers of Thomson. The singular fidelity and clearness of his descriptions, prove him to have studied all his pictures for himself, in nature;

a certain simplicity of thought, and softness of heart, give a peculiar character to his manner, that excludes all idea of imita tion; and his fine and discriminating pictures of the Scotish landscape, and the Scotish peasantry, are as new in their subject, as they are excellent in the execution.

There is something irresistibly pleasing in the faithful representation of external nature, even in her simplest and most ordifary aspects. All men have interesting associations with dawnings and sunsets—and the returns of summer and winter, as they indicate themselves upon the woods and waters, the mountains and fields of our home scenery, recal to every bosom a thousand impressions, more deep and touching than can usually be excited by objects far more new and extraordinary. A lively picture of nature, therefore, pleases everybody-and is the only thing, perhaps, that does so. Nor are we very apt, while we feel indebted to the artist for a clear and striking conception, to blame him for having painted what is common, or even what had been often painted before. If a descriptive poet makes us feel distinctly that he is copying from nature, and not from his predecessors, we excuse a good deal of coincidence, and really receive a new impression from a new portrait of the same grand original.

Mr Grahame's descriptions appear to us to be remarkable for their great fidelity, minuteness and brevity,-for the singular simplicity and directness with which they are brought out,—and for a kind of artless earnestness in the manner of their execution which shows the author to have been entirely occupied with the care of rendering faithfully and exactly what was present to his eye or his memory. There is no ambition to be fine or striking,and no great concern, apparently, about the distant effect or ideal perfection of his landscape,-but an honest determination and endeavour to give his readers precisely what was before him,-and to communicate faithfully to them what had actually made an impression on himself. In this way, he seldom thinks it necessary

to call in the aid of exaggeration, or to invent any picturesque or extraordinary circumstances to bespeak an interest for his delineations; but presents his scenes successively in all their native plainness and simplicity, noting down all the features that really occur in them, without concerning himself whether other poets have represented them or not,-and stopping when these are exhausted, however abrupt or imperfect the composition may consequently appear. The effect of this plan of writing is, that his descriptions are almost always strong and impressive, and present the most distinct and vivid images to the fancy; although they are not often heightened by any great glow of genius or animation, and are frequently broken and irregular, or deficient in that keeping which may be found in the works of those who write more from the love of the art than of the subject.

The great charm, however, of Mr Grahame's poetry, appears to us to consist in its moral character,-in that natural expression of kindness and tenderness of heart, which gives such a peculiar air of paternal goodness and patriarchal simplicity to his writings, and that earnest and intimate sympathy with the objects of his compassion, which assures us at once that he is not making a theatrical display of sensibility, but merely giving vent to the familiar sentiments of his bosom. We can trace here, in short, and with the same pleasing effects, that entire absence of all art, effort and affectation, which we have already noticed as the most remarkable distinction of his attempts in description. Almost all the other poets with whom we are acquainted, appear but too obviously to put their feelings and affections, as well as their fancies and phrases, into a sort of studied dress, before they venture to present them to the crowded assembly of the public: and though the style and fashion of this dress varies according to the taste and ability of the inventors, still it serves almost equally to hide their native proportions, and to prove that they were a little ashamed or afraid to exhibit them, as they really were. greater part of those who have aimed at producing a pathetic effect, have attempted to raise and exalt both the characters of their personages and the language in which they are spoken of; and thus to seek an excuse, as it were, for their sensibility in the illusions of vulgar admiration others have aggravated their distresses with strange and incredible complications,--that it might appeat that they did not disturb themselves on light and ordinary grounds and some few have dressed out both themselves and their heroes in such a tissue of whimsical and capricious affectations, that they are still less in danger than their neighbours of being suspected of indulging in the vulgar sympathies of our nature. Now, Mr Grahame, we thirk, has got over this general

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nervousness